A “bamboo ceiling” in Australian public life excludes those with an Asian background from positions of influence, and risks creating “a class of professional Asian-Australian coolies in the 21st century”, the race discrimination commissioner says.

Poor representation of Asian-Australians in business, academia and politics “appears to replicate a pattern of invisibility that exists within Australian culture,” Tim Soutphommasane told the Asian Studies Association at the University of Western Australia on Thursday.

“I see few Asian faces on the Block or House Rules, on Neighbours or Home and Away,” he said, adding: “I remain unconvinced that the fashion of adorning one’s living rooms or gardens with Buddhas is compelling evidence of genuine cultural learning.”

Soutphommasane, who is of Chinese and Lao extraction, used the recent incident when a woman was filmed racially abusing an Asian passenger on a bus in Sydney to pinpoint “an anxiety that has often accompanied the Asianisation of Australia”.

Despite the fact that one in 10 Australians have Asian ancestry, Soutphommasane said, there were just four members of federal parliament of Asian origin: Penny Wong and Lisa Singh from Labor, Ian Goodenough from the Coalition, and newly elected Palmer United party senator Dio Wang.

This under-representation was consistent across the public service, with just 3.8% of departmental secretaries and deputy secretaries boasting an Asian background, and just two out of 49 executives in Australia’s Group of 8 universities. Similarly low rates dogged Asian Australians in the private sector too, he said.

“Is there a bamboo ceiling that exists in the same way that a glass ceiling exists for women?” Soutphommasane asked.

“We must avoid the creation of a new class: a class of professional Asian-Australian coolies in the twenty-first century. A class of well-educated, ostensibly over-achieving Asian-Australians, who may nonetheless be permanently locked out from the ranks of their society’s leadership.”

A recent survey of Australian social attitudes showed that 84% thought multiculturalism had been a boon for the country, but Soutphommasane said there lingered a hesitance to fully embrace Asia, evident in Australia’s relatively low uptake of Asian languages.

This was typical, he said, of a relationship with Asia that was framed in “nakedly mercantilist” terms.

“People talk about how we can maximise the ‘rent’ from our relationships with the region, of how we can ‘capitalise’ on Asian growth,” he said. “Cultural engagement can’t be sustained by economic ambition by alone.”

Soutphommasane called for an Australian embrace of Asia that was “thoroughly cultural in nature”.

“We must be willing not just to see Asian neighbours as economic partners, but also be open to learning from them,” he said.

“Could there not be aspects of Asian practices of communal obligation or responsibility that may give us a new perspective on so-called Australian values, such as mateship and egalitarianism?”